Suit alleges doctor used cardinal's blood as relic

Posted: Saturday, April 21, 2001

NEW YORK (AP) - A cancer doctor who treated the late Cardinal Terence Cooke is accused in a lawsuit by a dismissed employee of loaning samples of the prelate's blood to patients as the "relic" of a possible saint.

The allegations are part of a lawsuit filed by a former employee of Dr. Thomas Fahey, now a vice president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Cooke was treated at Sloan-Kettering before he died of leukemia in 1983 at age 62.

The allegations were first reported Friday in the Daily News.

Holly McCunn accused Fahey of directing her to give certain patients a slide that he said contained a sample of the cardinal's blood so that they could use it to pray.

McCunn's suit against the hospital alleges that Fahey fired her when he found out she was suffering from breast cancer and would have to miss too much work.

A U.S. District Court judge last September dismissed a motion by the hospital to throw out the lawsuit.